People Who Clean For A Living Are Sharing Their Wildest, Most Gag-Worthy Moments From Work, And It's Not For The Faint Of Heart (Or Stomach)
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who work as professional cleaners to tell us their horror stories from on the job. As you can imagine, people are disgusting, and the stories that were shared are pretty nausea-inducing. Proceed with caution:
1."I worked as a housekeeper at a major retail store in a very affluent suburb. I got called up to the junior's department early one morning. At the time, only one very pretty blonde had been in the dressing room with a pink sweatsuit. As I went to the front, I saw her at customer service talking to the clerk. I went up front, and someone told me a customer had complained about the smell in the dressing room. This young gal had taken a poop in the stall area! I had to keep telling myself it was only dog doo as I picked it up. Oh, the stories I could tell you!"
—Anonymous
2."I'm a janitor at a high school. About 15 years ago, I walked into the girls' bathroom to clean it. There was a girl there squatting over a sink, taking a whiz! I gasped and stared. I was pretty new to the job and not yet used to seeing wild stuff like that. She snapped, 'Do you MIND?' and then splashed some of the urine in the already-full sink in my direction. She mostly missed, but a couple of drops hit me."
—Anonymous
3."I cleaned homes on the side shortly before COVID. My main client was a divorced 'hot dad' chiropractor, his teenage daughter (who was never there), and his two preteen sons. They were lovely people, and I was happy to work for them. The boys would use their dad's bathroom. The first time I cleaned around there, I thought the quarter-inch thick, golden, jello-like material around the toilet, on the floor, and all over the seat was spilled soap. Reader, it was urine."
4."I worked at a tanning salon in the early '00s. My job was to clean the tanning beds and rooms. At the end of a shift, I emptied the tiny trash can in a room and felt it was wet. Someone had taken a massive pee in the trash can. It was up to the top of the can. I had to take it to the bathroom to dump it out. So disgusting!"
—Anonymous
5."I am a custodian at the local public library. Just last week, someone vomited up something that looked like a human finger. The stories I could tell would leave you bug-eyed!"
6."I worked as a commercial cleaner Monday through Friday in a building with multiple suites. My routine included emptying the trash can next to the parking lot every evening. Every day, I would empty this trash bag, and there would be multiple empty raw chicken containers. We are talking about 10 pounds of chicken every single day! Most of the time, they were still in the shopping bag from the store. It was the weirdest thing, and I still can't figure out who could possibly eat that much chicken in one day or why they brought the trash to work!"
—Anonymous
7."My mom used to work for a maid service. One family's teenage daughter left used pads attached to her underwear under her bed."
8."I used to be a housekeeper for a wealthy lady. She was nice and kind of eccentric, but harmlessly, or so I thought. One day, I was cleaning her walk-in closet and noticed a completely nauseating smell coming from one section — the part of the closet where she kept her fanciest dresses. Then, I saw that all the dresses were streaked with this weird greenish-brown color. I took a step closer, and sure enough, I saw these dresses were slathered in feces. It was oddly liquidy, and it seemed that she had just spread it all over the dresses like she was washing them (only instead of water, she was using poop). It was weird and gross, but I never mentioned it to her."
—Anonymous
9."My friend is a cleaner. Once, she worked for this family of perfectly nice people, but the mom and dad were really freaky! She found certain fluids in all kinds of places — in their bed, but also behind and on the curtains, in the bathroom, the living room, the dining table, the hallway, and the kitchen (including INSIDE the refrigerator). She said the most unbelievable thing was that they never cleaned it up or even seemed to notice it! In the end, she quit because it was just too awkward."
10."I was hired to clean a house with hundreds of toys on the living room floor, a dozen take-out containers strewn across the kitchen, every dish, pot, and pan in the house caked with old dried food, and months of dirty laundry all over the place. Their brand-new furniture was covered in dirty plates. These were owners of a preschool chain. There were piles of bills everywhere. They wanted the house clean before the in-laws visited. They fired me in front of the in-laws because of dust on the top of the door frame. If I had to do it over, I'd have taken pictures to show the in-laws. I've actually been hired to do this for several people, and the result is always the same: I'm fired as soon as the company is gone."
—Anonymous
11."I used to work for this couple who didn't seem weird or anything. After I'd been working for them for a few weeks, they asked me to water their houseplants as part of my job. I said sure, no big deal. When I went to water the plants for the first time, I picked up the watering can and saw right away that someone had crapped in it. I brought this up to the couple because I was super confused. They immediately started laughing like maniacs. Between guffaws, they were like, 'Did you like the teensy little surprise we left you?' It was totally bizarre and a genuine out-of-body experience. I quit soon after."
—Anonymous
12."I used to work for a textile restoration company. We packed out textiles after a fire/flood/etc. We did a house where the girl who lived in the main bedroom didn't own the place, so she didn't care very much what went down inside. We found crusty, filthy underwear with used pads still stuck on them laying all over the floor, used pads stuck on the wall, and piles of dirty clothes in the closet covered in every bodily fluid you can think of. Another company packed about 75 industrial-sized garbage bags filled with trash from two rooms."
—Anonymous
13."I work for a cleaning company. One day, I had this new client who wasn't home. Her house was FULL of crucifixes and terrifying religious artwork. It was like in the movie Carrie. The house looked like it had never been cleaned at all. There was dust and mold everywhere. I was uneasy but did my job. When I was walking out, I saw several far-right yard signs, one of which called for same-sex marriage to be made illegal. I'm a lesbian. I was properly creeped out and requested not to be assigned to that house again."
—Anonymous
14."I used to work at a Target. Someone had diarrhea all over the bathroom floor."
—Anonymous
15."There were used contacts everywhere — on tables, lamps, walls, shower doors, toilets, drawers, mirrors, etc. I cleaned for these two doctors and thought they were moving in because they were living out of boxes in the main bedroom. I was told they had been clients for two years and were not moving in or out. Then, I started finding these little sticky things everywhere. It took me far too long to realize they were used contacts. It really grossed me out for some reason. They never mentioned it and always asked for the kitchen floor to be cleaned extra well because of their baby. I always wondered why they weren't concerned the baby would put the used contacts in their mouth. The baby's room was right down the hall."
16."I work as a cleaner for banks in the evening and found a cup of used pee and a pregnancy test in the trash. I knew it was one of the workers that took the test. Let’s just say she was definitely pregnant."
—Anonymous
17."I worked as a housekeeper at a resort in Wisconsin Dells when I was 16 or 17. I had worked at the place for less than a month at this point. The day started like a normal Saturday. I walked into a unit to clean it, probably hungover or generally angry, and went through the motions. The guest had used the fireplace, so that took more of my time. Then I cleaned the kitchen, which wasn't too bad. Then I opened the door to walk into the bathroom, and WHOA. Dead guy in the tub! I had been in the cabin for about 20 minutes before discovering him! There were no signs of struggle or anything suspicious. The cause of death was ruled as natural causes. It really shook me up."
—Anonymous
18."I used to be a cleaning girl at a retirement community. One day I was cleaning this older woman's apartment, and I found cat poop everywhere — and I mean EVERYWHERE. It was nasty! I started cleaning up the literal pounds upon pounds of kitty litter. Then, the woman who lived in the apartment walked in and screamed at me to stop. She said, 'Don't get rid of it! I like to have it for a little snack!' then she burst into hysterical laughter. I slowly backed out of the apartment. I never learned if she was joking or WHAT was happening."
—Anonymous
19.And: "I knew a professional cleaner who another mutual friend hired. She would charge this one couple double because she had to pick up used condoms from under their bed, and the man apparently had the worst aim at the toilet. As one story goes, the man once forgot to remove the condom before peeing (they drank a lot) and left the resulting mess for our friend to clean. She dropped them as clients soon after."
Okay, I actually feel sick. What is wrong with people?! If you work as a professional cleaner and have a nasty story that rivals any of these, please tell us in the comments, or you can share your story anonymously using this form.
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
